Starving the little tykes into submission... By Kate

My mum tells me that at the age of two, I ate everything and anything put in front of me. By the age of five, I was Little Miss Picky. Not to an unmanageable or unhealthy extent, but my fussiness was exasperating for my mum, who was - and is - a wonderful and imaginative cook. In time, my food foibles also cast a blight over my own enjoyment of social eating and I suspect it's partly for this reason that by adulthood I had pretty much trained myself out of it.

Not surprisingly then, I am keen that Rosie will not be a finicky and unadventurous eater. I want mealtimes to be enjoyable, family occasions rather than battlegrounds and I want her to grow up appreciating good food. Nor do I want to have to faff around giving Rosie separate meals from mine and Theo's. Life's too short.

So I felt a tad dismayed when it became clear that Rosie, after a promising start, had become a vegetable refusenik and developed a deeply suspicious view of any unfamiliar ingredients. And what's more, her repertoire was shrinking rapidly. Something Had To Be Done.

With a bit of analysis, it occurred to me I was making it a piece of cake for Rosie to refuse her main course by always offering plain Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit (which she adores) as a follow-up. My reasoning had been that it wasn't a major disaster if she didn't eat much of her first course because she would at least have had something nutritious to follow it. But in fact, it was an own goal. Why bother making the effort with a strange new concoction if there's a Sure Thing on the horizon?

So I changed strategy. If Rosie refused to more than play with her main course, there was no alternative option on the menu. My reasoning being that if she was truly hungry, she would eat whatever was put in front of her - or at least some of it. If she's not really hungry, then she clearly doesn't need more food.

We also started making an effort to have family meals every day - bringing our own suppertime forward to accommodate the change - in the name of "monkey see, monkey do". And if Rosie is fiddling with her food, we try not to draw attention to her and likewise try not to make a meal of it when she does deign to put something new into her mouth. Furthermore, if Rosie decides she doesn't want what's on offer, we try to curtail the meal with the minimum of fuss - no scolding or cajoling (although she gets re-offered the food if she indicates she wants it back again) - we just clean her up and get her down from the table . Oh, and we've also cut down on snacks between meals. Apart from occasional treats, she's only allowed a bit of fresh fruit, and nothing too close to mealtimes.

Rosie hasn't become The Incredible Scoffing Toddler overnight, but the good news is that the Get Tough Starvation Strategy is getting results. Rosie is now usually willing to at least try the things in her bowl and her repertoire is widening again. She's also surprised us (and probably herself) on several occasions by doing a last-minute volte-face and suddenly stuffing her face with a previously despised food and asking for seconds. I'm hopeful that in time we'll even get her on friendly terms with undisguised vegetable matter, but I'm not kidding myself that will happen any time soon.

"You won't actually let her starve, will you?" one concerned relative asked me after I'd outlined my new eating plan for Rosie. Of course not. And I'm even more confident that Rosie won't let herself starve. The only real drawback is that a supper refusal will tend to result in a horribly early start the following day. Rosie wakes up, can't get herself back to sleep because she's ravenous and in a neat piece of toddler revenge, ensures that Theo and I eventually give up our warm bed for a bleary family breakfast on the wrong side of 07.00.
You can't win them all. Still, at least Rosie retains a sense of style during her meals. After all, it's far easier to tackle a potentially threatening foodstuff while wearing the appropriate accessories.

fussy eaters

I've cooked for a fair few fussy eaters in my time. Mentioning no names - you know who you are! ;-) - there have been those with self-imposed regimes, the vegans and manic-organics, and others whose various, often quite bizarre allergies (or, possibly, phobias) forced me to rather drastically change my culinary habits. None quite top my darling daughter however.

It's not so much the fussiness that gets me, more the unpredictability. Just three weeks ago she couldn't get enough of some of my culinary creations: pear, broccoli and chickpeas flavoured with clove; red lentils, squash, ginger and garam masala; puy lentils, coconut, leek and sweet potato; carrot, coriander, roasted pepper and lentils. Rosie would happily gobble down up to three ice-cubes worth, perhaps followed by some natural yoghurt. Finger food, however, held zero interest to her, with the possible exception of the fun game of throwing something on the floor so Mummy and Daddy have to pick it up.

That's all changed. For the past couple of days the roles have reversed. Even the normally rapturously received greek yoghurt has prompted whingeing, while many previously favoured purees are now given the hamster cheek treatment: she'll keep accepting food, but rather than swallow it keep in in her cheeks until it reaches a critical mass where upon, with no small ceremony, it is expelled, bib-wards. However, she has now developed a serious interest in finger food - cheese on toast, pasta, roasted veg and mango are all top treats as far as the little tot is concerned.Babies. There's fussy buggers. But we love ours!

Food, frustration and fun By Kate

For almost four months Rosie has been exploring the wondrous world of food. Weaning is the correct term, but I think she's drinking as much milk as she ever did, so it's possibly not accurate. Yet.

Since the first post on this subject, we have discovered a shop in Madrid which sells organic baby food that isn't loaded with unnecessary added salt and/or sugar (UK-made). But it's heinously expensive, so definitely only for emergency situations.

Luckily, after initial despair that Rosie would never condescend to eat the pureed preparations lovingly crafted for her by her Daddy, she soon started to respond more willingly when they were offered. Not to absolutely everything you understand, but as Theo got the hang of baby cuisine and sussed what Rosie's palate would be more likely to accept, we had more hits than misses.

Fruity stuff goes down well, not surprisingly, as do concoctions involving lentils and chick-peas - providing they're well spiced with ginger and/or Garam Masala. Orange stuff is usually preferred over green stuff, but green stuff is deemed acceptable if sexed up with added fruit. Greek yoghurt - taken plain or with added fruit - is an ongoing favourite.
Finger food goes in and out of favour. Roast veg were a big hit to begin with, especially courgettes. Now she spurns those, as she does the potato wedges she once enjoyed and tends to favour red pepper and well-cooked carrot.
Cheese has gone down well (we haven't tried strong-tasting varieties yet except goat's cheese, which wasn't exactly successful) and bread remains popular, although rice-cakes are now preferred over toast. Pasta is generally welcomed, especially if it's rigatoni and almost all fresh fruit is eagerly consumed.
The main problem Rosie finds is that over-enthusiasm for something leads to an over-crammed mouth which she finds almost impossible to empty. Instead she'll look perturbed and wail loudly until the problem resolves itself (the food melts down into more manageable proportions) or a parental finger is inserted to help ease the situation. She'll then spurn the remainder of the offending food as if it's to blame for her predicament.

If dining gets too onerous and Rosie's tolerance levels become exhausted, there's always a fall-back position: the Mummy And Daddy In-house Cabaret. See below for details. Then you can always sneak in a spoonful or two while she's distracted by the live entertainment.

Food Fights - by Theo

Weaning has begun! Actually we began giving Rosie finger food (baby-led weaning) a while ago, back in June, but never with any kind of regularity, and during our English summer sojourn we actually purchased some baby food. However, being on the move made sticking to a routine somewhat tricky. Also the travel highchair our friends Jero and Jose kindly gave us sadly doesn't fit onto every table, meaning Rosie was often on one of our laps at meal times - hard enough to feed her without getting covered ourselves, let alone eat our own meal.However since we've returned a routine of three meals a day has been established, with the help of a high chair. Indeed, our first stop in Madrid was IKEA! It's not been easy; since finishing the baby porridge and Ella's Kitchen pouches we'd brought with us, finding stuff that a) Rosie will happily eat and b) we will happily give her has proven tricky! Most commercial baby-food we've looked at her has added sugar and/or salt - big no no - or, of course, meat. Meanwhile my first attempts at making pureed baby-food were not met with an enthusiastic welcome, so bread, fruit and green beans to be gummed to death had become a bit of a staple (we'd left Cathy and Jean's with a huge bag of fresh produce from their garden). Nevertheless, with my last two culinary efforts (Pear, peas and broccoli; Carrot, lentils, ginger and garam masala) have been wolfed down. I suspect the war is not yet won, but after defeat in the initial skirmishes victory is definitely mine!!